Thursday, 20 December 2012

"O Christmas Tree" - Ornaments...

From antiques...

1880-1900

....to vintage...

1950's - 1980's (from my collection)

...and History:

The first decorated trees were adorned with apples, strings of
popcorn,white candy canes and pastries in the shapes of stars, hearts
and flowers.* Glass baubles were first made in Lauscha, Germany, by Hans Greinerwho produced garlands of glass beads similar to the popcorn strandsand
tin
figures that could be hung on trees.The popularity of these
decorations grew into the productionof glass figures made by highly
skilled artisans with clay molds.

The original ornaments were only in the shape of fruits and
nuts,blown "free" hand, without a mold.

1880 - 1900 (from my collection)

However artisans soon began to use molds to increase their production.The artisans heated a glass tube over a flame, then inserted the tube
into a clay mold, blowing the heated glass to expand into the shape of
the mold.

The pine cone was one of the first designs.

1880-1890

It was followed gradually by
the hundreds of different designs we are familiar with today.By the
1880s buyers from American stores were coming to the area to purchase
glass ornaments.One of the earliest was F.W. Woolworth.

1930's - 1960's (from my collection))

**************

Why did Lauscha develop into a center for this trade?

In the 1590's,
Huguenot glass blowers, originally living in the German province of
Schwaben,
were forced to flee their homes due to religious persecution. and settled in Thueringen.

The Thuringia region had been home to glassmaking as early as the 12th
century.
Lauscha, located in a river valley, had several elements needed
for glass-making:
timber (for firing the glass ovens) and sand.
(Nearby
Jena would later become famous for its optical glass.)

Lauscha around 1900

Christoph Müller and Hans Greiner set up Lauscha's first glassworks in 1597.
Soon other Glashütten (glassworks) were established in the village.

In 1847 Hans Greiner
(a descendent of the Hans Greiner who had established Lauscha's first glassworks)
began producing glass ornaments (Glasschmuck) in the shape of fruits and nuts.

1880 - 1900 (from my collection)

These ornaments were made in a unique hand-blown process combined with molds.
The inside of the ornament was made to look silvery, at first with
mercury or lead,
then later using a special compound of silver nitrate
and sugar water,
a silvering technique developed in the 1850s by Justus von Liebig.
After the nitrate solution dried, the ornament was hand-painted and topped with a cap and hook.

The ornaments were blown and silvered in a
workshop attached to a home.

Generally the glass was blown by men
and
the silvering and painting handled by women.

All members of the family, including
children, helped paint and finish them.
A typical work day lasted 15-16
hours, six days a week.
A family might produce 300-600
glass balls a week, depending on size and complexity.

Executed with style and imagination, and drawing upon their
traditions of hand made craft work,
glass ornaments have come a
long way from their humble commercial origins.
They deserve their
recognition as an important form of German folk art.

Most of the images used for European hand blown glass ornaments are
common subjects for Christmas tree ornaments,
and others are simply the
whimsy of a creative glass blower.
But some ornaments have religious
significance or are a sign of good luck,
and a few are associated with
charming stories from the glassmakers' past.

1880's
made by my Great-Grandfather
who was a passionate glass blower and designer in Schlesien (Silesia)

*

Birds are considered a universal symbol of happiness and joy and are
regarded by many to be a necessity on the Christmas tree. Because bird
ornaments were difficult to create, few glassblowing families in Germany
specialized in the making of these special pieces. Birds represent
messengers of love and are the harbingers of good things to come. It is said that many German families felt that finding
a bird's nest was a sign that good luck would come to their family
throughout the year.

1920's

Additional symbols of good luck include the red and white capped
mushroom stem

1890-1900 (from my collection)

*Musical instruments,

1880 - 1900 (from my collection)

especially horns, are prevalent since they
herald the celebration of Christmas music and were sounded to welcome
Christ into the world.

1880 - 1900

Reminiscent of nature's own tree decorations,
pine cones, walnuts, and icicles are commonly depicted in glass
ornaments but each have further significance. Pine cones were often
brightly colored and imitated the cones found on European trees. These
cones tended to be long and thin.

1950's (from my collection)

The walnut was known to ancient Romans
as "the nut of the Gods" and was one of the very first tree ornaments. Prior to the Reformation,
European children received walnuts from St. Nicholas. And, often tiny
gifts were concealed inside a gold or silver painted walnut.

1880 - 1900 (from my collection)

***

1880-1900 (from my collection)

Reflectors (the ornaments with geometric concave indentations) are
sometimes
referred to as "witches eyes." In the Victorian era at least one
reflector ornament was placed on the Christmas tree to fend off evil
spirits present in the home during
the holiday season.

1900 (single one) and 1930's (from my collection)

Bells have always signified the spread of good
tidings and good news.

,It is said that they evoke
excellent cosmic energy.

Christmas bells are also associated with a
call to prayer.

*

1880 - 1930's (sold)

*****

Soon these unique glass Christmas ornaments were being exported to other
parts of Europe.
By the 1870's, Lauscha was exporting its unique glass
ornaments to Britain.
Glass ornaments had become popular in 1846 when an
illustration
of Queen Victoria's Christmas tree was printed in a London
paper.
The royal tree was decorated with glass ornaments from Prince
Albert's native land of Germany.

In the 1880s the American dime-store magnate F. W. Woolworth
discovered Lauscha's Glaskugeln during a visit to Germany.
He made a fortune by importing the German glass ornaments to the U.S.

After World War II, East Germany turned most of Lauscha's glassworks
into state-owned concerns.
After the Wall came down, most of the
firms were reestablished as private companies.
Today there are still
about 20 small glass-blowing firms active in Lauscha.

As we know by now -from the 16th century
Christmas tree decorations have been created from various materials.

The most spectacular and fragile decorations are assembled of glass
beads and bugles – called Gablonz ornaments (or in German Gablonzer
Glasperlen-Cristbaumschmuck). They were produced in the region of
Jablonec nad Nisou (or in German Gablonz an der Neiße) – capital of the
Austrian bead industry during the Austrian Empire in Northern Bohemia
(now Czech Republic) starting in the middle 19th century.

1870 Justus Liebig from the town of
Morgenstern near Gablonz invented the craft of lining glass objects from
the inside with silver. Many designs and innovations were introduced
and the tradition of making elaborate Christmas tree ornaments
developed. Silvered, polished or even gold-plated beads were strung up
and bent artistically into various shapes with thin wires.

Glass chains, around 1900, Gablonz (from my collection)

In the
beginning production of glass beads, hand or mouth-blown, as well as
multiple strings and small glass tubes was a speciality of the jewelry
industry. So, originally the fabrication of beaded Christmas ornaments
from the native material was developed as a co-product of a glassmakers
who produced certain designs at homes for a larger centralized trading
companies.

1880 - 1930's, Gablonz (from my collection)

Objects
and ornaments were created in late 19th – first half
of the 20th century. They were assembled with different types of beads:
pressed beads, rocailles beads, beads with additional interior
grooving, glass rods, atlas beads, wooden beads, molded blown beads or
hollow beads with silver or gold lining in countless variations of
color, patterns and transparency.
see here

Older Gablonz decorations are
including small disks or cubes of golden composition material, which
hold the wires of ornament together. Some objects excitingly combining
with beads other different materials: tinsel, cotton spun, lametta,
chenille, foil, phosphoric wax, wire etc.......

9 comments:

Dear Karin -Oh my gosh! What an impressive collection!! You are making me drool. :) I want to fly over and play with your ornaments.....help you decorate. Thanks for educating us, as you always do. I love your great grandfather's ornament. Is that a teapot? I think your collection is one of the best!Merry Christmas ~Loi

I recognised some of your collection as my parents still have some lovely old Christmas decorations which now sadly sit in a box instead of adorning the Christmas tree. Thank you for sharing your beautiful collection with us and also for the information about the history of Christmas tree decorations. As children we also make special German Christmas biscuits which were hung up on the tree - a tradition which was passed down the family from my German Great-grandparents.

Karin, you are An Authority! How much you know! And how well you tell the story ---Your collection is fantastic, it illustrates so many of these different kinds of ornaments. They are all interesting, and have their own stories. (I've heard that a spider in a web ornament is lucky also.)However, the one that makes me long to start decorating immediately is the very second photo, those wonderful vintage balls from the 50's and the next few decades. Their vivid colors and glittering decorations spell out Christmas to me.Merry Christmas to you, and all good things for 2013!

I leave a response when I especially enjoy a post on a site or if I have something to add to the discussion. It is a result of the fire displayed in the article I looked at. And on this post ""O Christmas Tree" - Ornaments...".I was actually excited enough to post a thought :-) I do have 2 questions for you if it's allright. Is it just me or do a few of the responses look as if they are coming from brain dead folks? :-P And, if you are posting on other online sites, I would like to follow everything new you have to post. Could you list every one of all your public pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?